


And They Need Curing

by MageOfAcademia



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen, Illness, Minor Character Death, Plague, Song of the Lioness - Freeform, Sweating Sickness, epidemic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23387191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MageOfAcademia/pseuds/MageOfAcademia
Summary: March, 431 HE: Something is brewing in Corus, and Duke Baird is very concerned, as the chief of the palace healers should be.But is he ready?He isn’t sure.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11





	1. Diagnosis

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for readers: this deals with a canon-compliant epidemic. There may be graphic descriptions of illness and death. I am drawing on historical details of plagues and epidemics in order to flesh out the actions taken by the characters as I build on canon, however, there will not be any significant canon divergence. 
> 
> The title is taken from The Plague, a novel by Albert Camus. The full quote is as follows: “I have no idea what’s awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.” 
> 
> I am writing this in part due to the current pandemic, and so readers may note certain parallels. I find placing my worries in a fantasy setting to be cathartic at times. If, as the reader, you find it stressful or that reading about a fictional epidemic worsens your own anxiety at this time, please know that this is a very reasonable response and you should not feel that you need to continue reading. 
> 
> See additional notes at the end of the work for my obligatory public health reminder, in keeping with the theme of this story!

“Your Grace?” 

“Hm?” The lanky healer looked up from his books, shoving his hair out of his eyes.

The man who had entered the room - a servant, based on his livery, and in his early fifties, from the grey streaking through his hair - waited until the young Duke had turned to face him before he began to speak. “Your Grace, there is a visitor for you in the sitting room. Mistress Sirla Baker, from the Lower City.” 

Sirla Baker? The name sounded vaguely familiar. “She’s a healer?” 

The servant gazed at him with an unreadable expression. Probably sizing him up, like everyone else had done for the past two years since he became chief of the palace healers. 

Baird nodded, willing more authority into his voice. “She’s a healer.” 

“Yes, your Grace.” 

Calm and presence, that was what mattered. Baird nodded, and gestured to the door. “Bring her in.” Inside his mind was churning. If Mistress Baker was here, from the Lower City, where matters tended to resolve themselves without the palace ever getting involved, then perhaps the rumors were true. Perhaps there was some truth to the rumors. For the past two weeks, he’d been hearing things that had him quite concerned. Mostly messages brought to him by Sir Myles, whispers from elsewhere in Corus that one person here, a handful there, were falling ill to the Sweating Sickness. He shuddered to think of it. The population was too dense, and an epidemic that dangerous would rage through it like wildfire.

The woman standing in front of him was neatly dressed, her greying hair tied up in a kerchief. “Your Grace,” she said, curtseying, “I am Mistress Baker, from the Lower City. I am here on behalf of many midwives and healers.” 

She was matter-of-fact in her words and her mannerisms, and Baird suspected that she would get directly to the point. He nodded for her to continue. 

“Your Grace, in the past week, among us we have treated nearly two dozen people, many children, many healthy, with high fevers, a cough, and sweating. Five have died. A few have recovered. The rest are still ill and we do not know if they will survive once the disease has run its course.” 

“Not the typical colds and vapours, I take it?” Baird knew the answer before she confirmed it. 

“You are the expert, Your Grace, but I know what a normal infection looks like, especially in a child.” 

Baird felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Do you wish me to go and see your patients? I would know more if I saw them for myself.” 

Mistress Baker nodded. “I had hoped you would do so, your Grace. Sooner rather than later, if you are able.” 

He could feel his mind churning with things he needed to do. He needed some of the other palace healers with him, to confer with him and see it for themselves. Orders for the salves and teas that could ease a cough or reduce a fever, and some fever-tea to bring down with him to the Lower City. Fresh sheets and bandages, beds made up in the temples and in the palace... He pulled his focus back to the woman in front of him. “I will need to bring some things with me, but that will only take an hour at the most. What has been tried for them so far?” 

“Fever-tea, but if you have it brewed stronger here, perhaps that would help. I have salves for the cough and those have worked in the ones who are less ill, but the sicker ones do not respond to it at all. We are using cool baths, although a few of the healers have tried hot smoke. We have not yet consulted the temples.” 

Baird nodded. “You’re doing the right things. I do have the stronger fever-tea, so I can bring some with us, and a few other salves. And I’ll bring a few other healers - perhaps together we can figure out how to save your patients.” 

He led her back out to the sitting room and rang for a servant. “I’ll have someone fetch you some refreshments while I gather what we need, and it will take me less than an hour.” 

With a satchel full of the right medicines, and the small notebook that he always carried, Baird returned to the sitting room, swinging a dark green cloak over his shoulders, relatively quickly. Mistress Baker, he noted, had an empty teacup in her hands, but had not touched the other refreshments that had been brought up. 

“If you are ready, Mistress Baker?” 

She nodded, rising from her chair, sweeping her skirts out from under her as she stood. “Then let us go.” 

As they walked into the city Baird made a point to learn more from the woman, and prepare himself for what he might encounter. She was in her late fifties, a midwife and healer by training, most often dealing with the everyday maladies and ailments that children and adults alike sustained. She delivered babies several times a week, and knew the poultices to use and the practices to take that helped to make sure the mothers survived more often than not. She seemed undaunted by a fever or a cough. In the thirty-five years that she had worked as a midwife, she had seen at least two significant outbreaks of infection that had threatened the people she cared for in the Lower City, and weathered them all. 

But this, she said, was different. The fever came on suddenly, and healthy men, women, and children were taken ill overnight. The fever would rise and rise, with profuse sweating, failing to break even with fever-tea and cold baths. And then the cough would come, from deep within the chest, a racking cough that drove the patient to exhaustion. For some, the fever would break. For others, it would continue to rise until the stricken person was delirious, and eventually the patient would succumb to the exhaustion and die. 

And most strikingly, Mistress Baker told him, she and the other healers were exhausted themselves. “I’ve been through a lot in my life,” she explained, “and I don’t mean any impertinence, your Grace, in saying that you’re quite young still. So perhaps you will fare better than I. But this takes it out of me like nothing I have ever encountered. It is a struggle to ease the cough, a battle to lower the fevers. And it fatigues me to the point that I am afraid that, if I pour my Gift into some of the sicker patients, I could die.” 

Baird hoped this was an exaggeration, but something about the look with which Mistress Baker fixed her gaze on him told him otherwise. 

And so did something about the dark sickroom that she led him into. 

The room smelled of sickness, a rank odor filling his nostrils. Sweat, urine, and the smell that accompanied the sickest of men. A figure huddled on the bed, coughing weakly. 

“Harlan Notter. 38 years old, healthy as a horse until now. He’s a blacksmith.” Mistress Baker knelt by the man, helping him into a sitting position so that he could meet Baird’s gaze. “Harlan, this is Duke Baird, a healer from the palace.” 

The man tried to look away. “Can’t... afford...” he whispered weakly. 

Baird crouched beside him. “Don’t worry, my friend, I do not want you to pay. I am here for you.” He placed a hand on the feverish man’s back, letting the emerald strands of his Gift sink in. 

It took all of his composure not to gasp in surprise. The illness raged, in the blood and in the lungs. The lungs themselves seemed full of fluid. The fever seemed to fight back, trying to push Baird’s Gift out. So he pushed harder. Tried to clutch at the fluid in the lungs with strands of his Gift, drawing it up and out. Pushed coolness into the ravaged tissues in return. And eventually, it seemed as if the cough had eased somewhat, and the fever had broken. 

Baird nearly fell backwards with exhaustion. He felt drained, as though he had brought multiple injured men back from the brink of death in too short a time... and this with only one patient! 

He tried to rise, and found a small, callused hand at his elbow, which he accepted without complaint. 

As Mistress Baker assisted him, she met his gaze. 

“Mr. Notter, I hope this has eased you somewhat,” Baird said, looking at the man. His cough was not as severe, and he did not seem to be hungering for air the way that he had been before. But he still looked ill, and Baird knew that the man was not out of the woods yet. 

Stumbling out of the sickroom, Baird noticed that Mistress Baker was at his elbow yet again. 

“I see you feel it too,” she said, looking him over.

He was sure that she noticed how pale and sweaty he must be, his brown hair disheveled, his gaze intent. “You did right to come see me,” he said. 

“Yes. And you would do well to not try that again. It will kill you, if you go that deeply for each patient. It’s what I was afraid of, why I fetched you.” 

Baird nodded. She was right. 

“Your Grace, do you know what this infection is?” 

He was silent for a moment, then mustered the will to answer. “Sadly, yes. I fear the Sweating Sickness is back.”


	2. Persuasion

Frankly, the Mithran priests were unbearable when they thought they were right. 

“Your Grace,” the archpriest said obsequiously, peering at him across the long table, “surely you are blowing this out of proportion. It is just a few individuals, and confined to the Lower City. These things will happen, and it is March, after all, and still cold. It will clear soon enough.” 

The Lord Provost glared at the priest, his thin face even more tense than usual. “When was the last time you walked through the Lower City, Your Reverence? You know how close together they live. Disease spreads, and we’d all do well to listen to our healers if we don’t want an epidemic raging through the area. My Guards don’t need the extra strain.” 

“So you think this is serious, then?” The archpriest shook his head. “Just because one sickly man sapped the chief healer? No offense meant to Your Grace, but you’re only twenty-nine. You’re young yet, and while you’re a strong healer, surely someone with more years of experience might be able to cure this disease without so much worry. We have priests who would be happy to help.” 

Baird sighed, straightening his shoulders. “In case you have forgotten, Your Reverence, I have been chief of the palace healers for just under two years, on my own merits. There may be very strong healers among your ranks, but Mistress Baker is a strong healer as well, with years of experience equal to my years of life, and she too thinks this to be a serious threat. I am likely not the strongest healer in Corus, but I understand the things that must be done for the health of the city and the health of the realm, and it is my job to take these things seriously.” 

Sir Myles also sat up a little straighter, leaning his chin against his hand as he spoke. “Illness spreads, gentlemen, and so do rumors. You forget, Your Reverence, that gossip travels in the Lower City, and people will be afraid. Do you want rioting? People threatening to storm your temples for safety from this plague, safety that you can’t give them? It’s not only Mistress Baker’s report that leads Duke Baird to this conclusion. I have been hearing from my sources that there are pockets of infection throughout Corus, not just in the Lower City, and I fear we are too late to stop it fully.” 

Baird was glad to have Myles on his side. The older knight had been known to talk the other nobles around, given enough time and enough liquor. 

Duke Gareth, who had watched and listened so far, taking notes without saying much, set down his quill. “If what you say is true, Myles, then we are looking at something quite problematic.” 

Myles nodded. 

Duke Gareth continued, turning his attention to Baird. “Now, you say that this is the Sweating Sickness. The last time that such a sickness hit Tortall, many died, including many healers. Before we go spreading information, I want to be sure that you are correct. How do you know that this is, in fact, the Sweating Sickness, and not something else?” 

Baird unfolded a sheet of paper, on which he had carefully copied down several healers’ accounts of the previous plague. “Similar illnesses, with high fevers and the possibility to spread rapidly, do seem to occur every fifty to one hundred years or so, with varying symptoms and varying severity. But I have many well-documented accounts of the Sweating Sickness from the year 242 HE. I read the account of the healer who treated the family of Sir Lionel of Trebond during that outbreak, and he describes the illness as descending across the whole of Tortall. Sir Lionel’s eldest son died during that outbreak, and this healer writes the following about the son: ‘He was well one evening and took ill suddenly in the middle of the night, with a fever so high that he was dreaming vivid dreams and yelling in his sleep, and a cough that seemed as though it would crack his ribs. Those who took ill so fast and so severely seldom recover, and alas, he was the same, and died by the end of the next day.’” Baird folded the paper and looked around the table. “This is exactly what Mistress Baker described, and exactly what I witnessed when I went down to the Lower City yesterday to see this firsthand. I firmly believe this to be the Sweating Sickness. If it is something else, then it is still consequential and could kill many, and we have a responsibility to the kingdom to act swiftly regardless. But this matches all accounts of the Sweating Sickness, and I think that is what we are facing.” 

He tried to meet each man’s eyes. The Mithran priest shook his head, refusing to meet Baird’s gaze. The Lord Provost nodded, worry creasing his brow. Duke Gareth’s face was almost unreadable, but he met Baird’s eyes without blinking. Myles grimaced in sympathy. Duke Turomot of Wellam, the Lord Magistrate, sat ramrod-straight in his chair and gave Baird the slightest nod. 

And the King sat there, watching, not speaking, meeting Baird’s glance at him with a carefully neutral expression. 

The Mithran priest coughed slightly, interrupting the silence. “These stories are historical anecdotes, Your Majesty. Your healer may be concerned, but it would not do to frighten the people of the city with these kinds of stories. Sir Myles speaks of rioting - need I remind you that the people are apt to riot when frightened? Spreading rumors of a plague that can kill in the night will incite violence, trouble in the Lower City that could spread throughout all of Corus. We must not tempt fate in that regard.” 

The King remained silent.

While he would never show it outwardly, Baird felt just about ready to leap up and challenge His Majesty. King Roald was always pleasant and gentle, a born diplomat, carefully neutral, but never confrontational. And, by all the gods, Baird wanted to see a little confrontation! If the Mithrans insisted on not worrying the city, then the people would not be able to take appropriate precautions, and the disease would spread. 

He decided to push his luck. “Your Majesty,” Baird asked, “what do you think?” 

The King leaned forward, surveying his councilors. “I think,” he said slowly, “that we must proceed with caution. All have raised valid points at this meeting, and I thank you all for your counsel. Duke Baird is correct, we must not underestimate a plague. Corus is a crowded city, and disease may spread fast. So we should look to contain this in the Lower City, and hope that it does not spread further. And His Reverence, too, is correct that fear will only sow discord among Our people. We must take care not to worry the city unnecessarily. Life at the palace must continue as usual, and business must continue as well. Corus must be healthy in all aspects. But to your point, Baird - we must do whatever is necessary to keep this disease from leaving the Lower City, and I leave that in your capable hands.” He sat back in his chair. “This meeting is concluded, gentlemen. Thank you for your counsel.” 

As the other council members left, Baird hung back. It wouldn’t do to confront the King in front of anyone else, after all. But once the others had disappeared, he turned to the King. 

“You wanted to speak further?” King Roald seemed awfully calm, despite the content of the meeting. 

Baird took a deep breath. “Sire.” Where to start without outright yelling at his ruler? “I understand that we must not worry people unnecessarily, but as you know, I disagree with the Mithrans in terms of how much worry is actually necessary. I have seen these patients, and they are sick. Not run-of-the-mill, seasonal winter illness sick, but frighteningly sick. This looks like the Sweating Sickness, and I am not taking that lightly. The people have to know.” 

“And I told you, Baird, this job is yours. You get to make the decisions on how to prevent the disease from spreading, and I will back you up. But we cannot have mass panic.” 

“Mithros, Sire, what do you think I want to do, cause a riot where everyone is spreading it to everyone else? We cannot have things carry on as normal! This disease must not get to the palace, you know that.” 

‘Don’t yell at your king, Baird, it’s not a good habit.” King Roald’s voice was dangerously level. “Of course it mustn’t get to the palace, but I am healthy, and my son is healthy, and so I am not too worried. You need to control yourself. This is not the time to lose your temper.” 

Baird cursed under his breath, and took a step back. “My apologies. Sire.” He tried to gather his thoughts into a coherent argument. “Look, Sire, you only have Jonathan. He is your only heir. This sickness affects the young and hale just as much as the old and unwell, and so I am duty-bound to tell you that you and the Prince are at risk in this case. We have to take actions to protect you both.” 

“Quarantine the Lower City, Baird. Keep the disease from getting to the palace, and we will all be safe. Use whatever resources you need, whoever you need among the healers, and I will make sure that we have the funds. But I will not lock Jonathan and myself behind closed doors. The people need to see their rulers remaining calm, not cowering. That’s why I’m counting on you to keep the sickness away from us. We can do no more than that.” The King’s face looked drawn, tired. “Go. Do what you need to do.” 

Baird bit back another angry remark, bowing slightly. “Thank you. Sire.” And he turned and left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep up the social distancing! Stay safe! Wear masks if you have to go out in public!
> 
> And I’d just like to point out that we all know Neal has a temper... wonder where he got it? Baird might be calm and collected most of the time in SoTL, and lots more by the time we see more of him in PoTS, but I suspect he’s mellowed over time.


	3. Quarantine

Baird didn’t have the time to be angry right now. It was a luxury he couldn’t permit himself, not when there were things needing doing and people needing healing. 

But, gods all be damned, politics were infuriating, and so was dealing with a stubborn king! The King and Queen were well beloved by most people in Corus, and it was common knowledge that Queen Lianne had nearly died in childbed, so Prince Jonathan would be the only heir. Aside from sending the right message to all of Corus, the problem of only having one prince, and a queen who couldn’t have more children, was simply that if harm were to come to any of them, the Conté line might come to an unfortunate end. 

And he had other problems beyond a royal desire to suppress widespread panic. First, and most importantly, there was a spreading outbreak of disease to control. He paced around his study in the Palace, trying to think. 

First, organize his Palace healers. Recruit other healers from the city. Make sure they have enough medicines and supplies for the task at hand. 

Second, quarantine the city. Close the gates in the walls of Corus. Try closing off the Lower City first, unless there are cases in other areas. And what if there was spread to other cities? 

He paused, and sat heavily in his chair. Taking out a quill, he closed his eyes for a moment, trying to will some calm into his mind and compose a letter to Wilina. She would know, at least, if there was illness within Queenscove’s borders, and she might even know whether there was word of cases elsewhere. 

Wilina... his wife was something else entirely. He missed her, and if not for this outbreak would have desperately wanted her by his side for her company and her general common sense. Frankly, she was brilliant, and had helped him solve many a logistical challenge with her keen eye for mathematics and planning, so under ordinary circumstances - in an ordinary outbreak, however odd that sounded - he would have wanted her here. But this was different. She was pregnant with their first child, and had gone back to Queenscove to attend to some necessary issues with the late-winter planting, and by now her pregnancy would be advanced enough that riding into an outbreak of disease would put both her and the child at risk. Besides, she ran the duchy admirably, far better than most Tortallan nobles ever could manage, and if he took ill in this plague, at least Queenscove would be safe and in good hands until their child was old enough to take on a share of the work. 

This was not the direction he meant his thoughts to go. He set down the quill, sighing. He’d write to Wilina tonight, once he’d sorted out the logistics of the quarantine. Instead, he scribbled down a message, rang the bell, and sent the Palace servant who appeared a few moments later to summon the other healers.

The first one to arrive to the conference room tucked off of the side of the infirmary was Orrin of Nond, a young man several degrees removed from Nond’s actual line of succession, who’d taken the opportunity posed by being a younger cousin without any expectations of knighthood or military service to go become a healer. Orrin had, in fact, become a good friend of Baird’s nearly ten years earlier, when the two young men had done some fieldwork together for a summer, and then again when they reunited once Baird became one of the Palace healers. After Baird’s appointment to his current position, Orrin had been a comforting presence and a voice of reason, someone who Baird went to when he needed to talk through a particularly complicated or troublesome case, and he usually could provide an optimistic outlook even in the most dire circumstances. 

Orrin didn’t look optimistic today, though, and as he took in Baird’s atypical disarray, he frowned. “So this is bad, I take it.” 

“Very. When was the last time you walked through the Lower City, Orrin?” 

“It’s been a while? Several months, at the least.” 

“No matter what I do, their sanitation doesn’t improve. It’ll take much more buy-in from the Palace to have the money to make the kind of changes they need.” He knew his hair was standing somewhat on end, but couldn’t stop himself from sweeping it back with his fingers in his characteristic gesture of stress. “I’m this close to outright charging into His Majesty’s chambers and insisting that they divert the funds for the latest ball or whatever directly to sanitation. And they expect me to stop an outbreak that’s rampaging through the Lower City just by quarantining them? Without proper sanitation, proper access to healers, any of it?” Green eyes flashing, he glared at the heavy wooden door separating the conference room from the Palace hallways. 

Orrin took his friend by the shoulders and gently redirected him into a chair. “Are you going to wait to explain everything until the others get here? Or are you just going to explain your message?” 

Another figure, this one a woman, came through the doorway. Rheann Whitecomb, a talented Corus healer who was one of Baird’s most recent selections to the post, took in the scene in front of her. “What’s this about an outbreak, Your Grace?” 

“Let’s keep our heads about us, shall we?” Laurent of Malorie’s Peak, a shorter, older man who’d been among the Palace healers for years, and his daughter Aralys, a curly-haired young woman who was a skilled healer in her own right, followed closely on Rheann’s heels. “I don’t think there’s anyone else coming, seeing as the others are either sleeping or tending to patients.” 

Baird nodded, determined to focus on his first challenge: organizing his colleagues. As succinctly as he could, he explained the situation to the other healers. At the mention of the Sweating Sickness, Laurent visibly paled. The older man was a scholar of healing and medicine, not just a mage, and Baird knew that Laurent was, of all of them, the most likely to have read about the Sweating Sickness in detail. As Baird continued to explain the situation in the Lower City, he watched his colleagues as they processed the situation.

“Well, of course we’ll go,” declared Aralys. “That’s what we signed up for, isn’t it?” 

“It’s not going to be a simple task, though,” cautioned Baird. “We have to find out whether there are more cases outside of the Lower City. If we can cordon off the areas where people are sick, we may stand a chance.” 

Laurent nodded. “The rest of you would’ve been just children the last time there was a major outbreak of disease in Corus, but perhaps some of you may recall. Back in 408 HE, there was an outbreak of the Red Fever in the Lower City. We were able to keep it confined to a few small areas even within the Lower City, by carefully tracking all of the known cases, and isolating anyone who developed symptoms. That was mostly in children, so they were not working and traveling around the city, and were easier to corral, but the Red Fever spreads like wildfire, so we had to act quickly. A quarantine worked then, but it was for a few short weeks in the winter, and people were not so inclined to move about. It’s spring now, and this affects young and hale folks who must work for a living. This will be harder.” 

Baird had been quite young then, but he knew the story. “We have on our side, however, the fact that many people will remember that quarantine, and they will understand what to do.” 

He stood up, unfurling a map of Corus on the table. “We will work with the Provost’s Guard to distribute healers and track cases. I’ll be speaking to the Lord Provost after this meeting and telling him how we plan to distribute our people. We have three tasks. First, we need to identify healers in each district who can assist us in tracking cases and implementing the quarantine. Second, we must quarantine the Lower City, and any other areas where disease has spread, and we must quarantine Corus, preventing people from entering or leaving the city. This is where the Provost’s Guard will come in. Third, we will be treating the patients. As Palace healers, we are stronger than many of the healers we will be working with, but there will likely be some who have Gifts equally strong, if not stronger. Once we identify those people, we will need to make sure they are appropriately distributed to where there is greatest need.” 

Baird took a quill and marked a star next to the Palace, and another spot at the Guard Station on Jane Street in the Lower City. “This Guard Station is near the first few cases, and will be our headquarters in the Lower City. Mistress Sirla Baker is our contact. She is already mobilizing healers, midwives, anyone who can help. Two of us must go there, to begin to implement the quarantine.” 

“I’ll go.” Orrin stood to write his name by the star. 

“And I.” Laurent added his name as well. “I recall the quarantine of 408 and I’ll be able to use that perspective to make this one work similarly well.” 

Baird nodded. “In that case, we shall be dividing up the rest of the districts. Everett of Marti’s Hill and Elin of Nenan are on the wards today, and Susha Dandash is attending a birth, but they will all need assignments as well.” 

“I can take Patten,” offered Aralys.

“Highfields and Prettybone for me,” said Rheann. “I grew up north of the Olorun, actually in Prettybone near Northbridge, so I know the area well, and I think I know who to talk to for additional healers.” 

“Susha will want Unicorn,” suggested Orrin. “She grew up there, I think.” 

Baird nodded. “Then Everett will cover Flash, Elin will take the Temple District as her sister is a priestess and will be a helpful contact, and I will handle the Palace District.” He wrote down the rest of the names on the map. “These assignments are for the purposes of determining the healers available in each district, implementing the quarantine, and determining whether there are any cases in each district. In terms of where we actually treat patients, that will depend on where the cases are and how many healers are needed. Some of us must cover the Palace, but the rest will be able to go where we are needed.” 

He sat back down, closing his eyes for a moment to think. “Next, the quarantine. I shall ride to the Lord Provost’s house as soon as we are done meeting, to brief him on our plans, but we must each take responsibility for implementing the quarantine in our respective districts. The borders of Corus will be closed. The bridges across the Olorun, and the boundaries between districts, will be closed except to necessary travel. Any households with a sick person will be quarantined, and a sign placed on the door. No one from those households shall leave the house, and no outsiders save for healers shall enter. You will need to meet tonight or tomorrow morning with the Guards in your Districts and explain these precautions. I will provide you with letters with the royal seal to lend additional weight to your explanations.” 

“The Lower City team, especially, has the hardest task, as any of you who’ve heard my rant about sanitation will know,” he added, somewhat wryly. “Lest I launch into another rant about how poor their sanitation is, and how it seems like it’s been 200 years without any real progress in terms of ability to drain sewage or improve ventilation in there, I’ll just summarize by saying that you will need to do what you can to improve sanitation in the short term, at least to prevent the disease from spreading drastically within households. If any of you feel like going before the King and Council with me when this outbreak is over, to argue for a major overhaul of the sanitation infrastructure of Corus, I’ll thank you and buy you all the drinks you think you need following a debate with the King. But that is beside the point. We will all need to do what we can on that front.”  
A deep breath, and on to the last point. “Lastly, treating the patients.” Baird thought back to how he’d felt the day prior, kneeling in that dark sickroom with Mistress Baker and her patient. “The Sweating Sickness is brutal. I saw a patient with Mistress Baker, and I can’t quite tell you what it is about this disease, but it takes it out of you like nothing else. This is no ordinary fever. The lungs fill with fluid, causing a hacking cough bad enough to break ribs and waste a man away. The tissues themselves are traumatized. And if that weren’t bad enough, it’s as if the Sickness itself is fighting you when you try to aid a patient. You need to be aware. You cannot, cannot afford to overstretch yourself. If I lose any of you to this illness, that’s one less healer to fight it, and I think it’s going to try to fight us back.” 

Four faces looked back at him, grim but determined. 

Baird felt exhausted, but the day wasn’t over yet. “I must ride to the Lord Provost now. We will check in later, once we know of more healers who can help.” 

As his colleagues filed out, Orrin gently patted him on the back. “I’m sure you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed,” he said dryly. 

Baird nodded. “How in Mithros’ name am I supposed to do this? Healers with twice my years fear a sickness like this one, and I have, nominally at least, a whole kingdom to keep healthy.” 

Orrin squeezed his shoulder in sympathy. “I don’t envy you your job, Baird, you know that. But you’re the man for this. No one in our class had a grasp of these kinds of logistics like you, let alone the actual healing itself. You’re probably the strongest healing Gift in all of Tortall right now, plus you understand the concept of public health. You’re going to make it work. And we’re right here with you, every step of the way.” 

Baird looked up at the friendly brown eyes of the man who had become his closest friend among the other healers in their cohort. “Just... keep yourself safe. Mithros and the Goddess guide you. And don’t you die, Orrin, you’re irreplaceable.” 

The other man smiled and exited the room, leaving Baird alone with the map of Corus and a growing sense that things were going to get worse before they got better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted a chapter, but life has kept me busy, and the pandemic hasn’t gone away. Sorry for the delay and hope you enjoy getting another snippet! 
> 
> Stay safe! Wear your masks!

**Author's Note:**

> Public health in a pandemic note: 
> 
> If you are worried about the current COVID19 pandemic, I encourage you to get your data from reliable sources like the WHO and the CDC, to practice good hygiene and social distancing, to write/read fanfiction at home away from other people, and to take care of your mental health. Please be safe, and stay at home if you are able!


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